1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to scraper attachments for tractors and the like and more particularly to scraper attachments which are under precise control by the tractor operator, and do not permit "wandering" of the blade from side-to-side, nor permit transverse tilting of the blade, except in response to controls on the tractor manipulated by the operator.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Tractor-mounted scrapers are well known in the prior art. The tractor-mounted scrapers of the prior art have in general, however, had their blades flexibly mounted, as by means of combinations of knuckle-joints, univeral/joints, and/or independently-pivoted arms, so that their blades responded to meeting resistance by tilting, wandering to one side, or riding up over the resisting matter. These prior art tractor-mounted scrapers, with their blades thus mounted, not only failed to take optimally deep cuts, limited only by the stalling of the tractor power plants, but were also characterized by wandering or imprecise tracking of their blades, in the sense that their blades failed to follow the path of their tractors themselves with the requisite precision.
Further, the downward forces on the blades of the tractor-mounted scrapers of the prior art were provided entirely by the weight of the blades themselves, and the weight of their support assemblies. This lack of downward force on the blades of tractor-mounted scrapers of the prior art was in substantial part responsible for the tendencies of these prior art devices to take insufficiently deep cuts, i.e., cuts of depth considerably less than that which would result in stalling of the tractor.